Porter Stansberry is pitching a new biotech strategy through Porter & Co. Biotechnology, and AI is a big part of the thesis. His argument is that AI, cheaper computing and autonomous labs are starting to dramatically change drug discovery. Instead of treating biotech like one giant lottery ticket, he thinks we're entering a period where AI can reduce early-stage failures, speed up research and potentially improve clinical success rates.

His strategy is basically a barbell. On one side, established biotech companies and royalty businesses that can generate cash without betting everything on one clinical trial. On the other, small speculative companies where one successful drug could dramatically change the company's value.

His current gene-silencing picks appear to be:

Novartis — NVS, the “ballast” of the group. Huge pharmaceutical company with plenty of diversification, although its recent Lp(a) drug trial failed.

Alnylam — ALNY, one of the pioneers of RNA interference/gene silencing and already commercializing drugs based on the technology.

Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals — ARWR, a more aggressive bet with a deep RNAi pipeline and potentially valuable intellectual property. Revenue is growing, but profitability is still a long way off.

Silence Therapeutics — SLN, the real lottery ticket. Its experimental drug zerlasiran reduced Lp(a) by as much as 99% in an early-stage trial. The company is only worth around $750 million and apparently has enough cash to operate through roughly 2028. But it hasn't started Phase 3 yet and appears to be looking for a partner to help fund it.

Porter also teases an “NVIDIA of Medicine.” That appears to be Eli Lilly — LLY. The thesis centers on Lilly's new oral obesity drug, Foundayo, which could be cheaper and easier to manufacture than peptide-based competitors while potentially capturing a huge piece of the weight-loss market.

What I actually like here isn't necessarily any individual stock, it's the broader thesis. AI might be one of the biggest things to happen to biotech in decades. We've spent years talking about AI replacing office work and writing code, but if AI can meaningfully reduce the time and failure rate involved in developing drugs then the financial impact could be much bigger.

I'm not sure we're at that “ignition point” yet, but biotech + AI is definitely a space I'm paying more attention to.